International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
Volume 2 – No.8, June 2010
Implementation of Cloud Computing on Web
Application
Liladhar R. Rewatkar
Zulekha College of Commerce,
Science and Technology, RTM
Nagpur University, Nagpur (MS).
INDIA
ABSTRACT
Cloud computing is a new method to add capabilities
to a computer without licensing new software,
investing in new hardware or infrastructure or
training new personnel. Applications are purchased,
licensed and run over the network instead of users
desktop. It provides common business applications
online that are that are accessed from a web browser,
while the software and data are stored on the servers.
The web is a global hypertext system, has evolved
into a distributed application platform, in which the
application logic and user interface are two separate
entities. As we move toward the cloud computing
web platform, web from web content to web of
applications, the bulk of user data applications will
reside in the network cloud.
Web applications are a critical part of internet
infrastructure and are used for banking, email,
financial management, online shopping, auctions,
social networking and the corporations such as
Google, Microsoft and yahoo expend considerable
effort to keep up with the growing demand for
communication-heavy internet services which require
image and video sharing, social networking and
searching. There is a shift from displaying
information using locally installed programs towards
displaying information on a browser. In this paper,
we give special importance to the connection between
cloud computing and web application. Also we
discuss the advantages of cloud computing and
survey challenges and issues related to cloud
computing.
Keywords
Browser, Cloud computing, Network cloud, Web
application.
Ujwal A. Lanjewar
Center Point College,
RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur
(MS). INDIA
1. Introduction
Web applications are distributed client-server
applications in which a web browser provides the
user interface, the client browser and the server side
exchange protocol messages represented as HTTP
requests and responses. Due to current
implementation methods, it is difficult to find out if a
certain application enforces adequately the
confidentiality or integrity of the information it
manipulates.
The vast amount of content available via URLs is
now accessible by highly reactive user interfaces via
HTML and JavaScript. Most browsers allow
JavaScript code to issue its own HTTP requests, a
functionality used in the AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript and XML) development approach [1].
Using AJAX, a web page can contain executable
code that connects your computer to a server and the
virtual connection bypasses the security mechanism
integrated into your browser. The underlying
mechanism of AJAX is the function
XMLHTTPRequest [5] which allows a remote
procedure call to a server on the internet.
Applying web technologies to the web, in which the
user has final control over the visual presentation and
user interaction. Web gadgets such as specialized
browsers automate away a large part of the user
actions when navigating through websites and
directly embed the target webpage into the user
browser. Browsing the web on small devices like
mobile phone relies on Web API, Rich Site
Summaries (RSS) and Atom feeds [3]. Web gadgets
provide specialized browsing functionality and are
hosted in a variety of environments ranging from
server-side containers to client-end user. Users can
drastically alter the interaction with web content
through scripting. Greasemonkey, a Firefox extension
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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
has enabled users to attach arbitrary scripts to web
content [4]. To enable scripting, Google offers
Google-AxsJAX [5]- a JavaScript library which helps
developers to enhance accessibility for users with
special needs such as hearing and visual impairment
[6] [7]. A new paradigm of computing has started to
evolve in recent times called cloud computing. In this
environment, the applications, data and software no
longer exist on the client side, instead they are treated
as abstract services and reside in a cloud. A cloud can
be network of nodes which exist on the server side
[8].
2. Web Application and Cloud
Computing
The services are accessible anywhere in the world,
with the cloud appearing as a single point of access
for all the computing needs of consumers. New
advances in processors, virtualization technology,
disk storage, broadband internet access and fast,
inexpensive servers have all combined to make cloud
computing a compelling paradigm. Cloud computing
allows users and companies to pay for and use the
software and storage that they need, when they need
then and as wireless broadband connection options
grow, where they need them. This type of software
deployment is called Software as a Service (SaaS)
[9]. [10]
Many of the underlying technologies such as grid
computing, peer-to-peer computing have a direct
contribution to cloud computing. In order to
understand what type of components exist in a cloud,
we first need to enumerate the typical components of
an application development. The components
excluding human resources are i) infrastructure
resources ii) software resources, iii) application
resources and iv) business processes [11]. In the
cloud computing paradigm, all of the above
components are treated as services and are in the
“cloud”; users do not have to invest or pay huge
licensing fees to won any of the above resources.
Infrastructure resources are storage, computing power
and so forth, which can take advantage of already
existing technologies such as grid computing. The
software resources include application servers,
database servers, IDE and so on. The application
resources include applications deployed as SaaS for
example Google docs.
The business process resources can be standard set of
common business utilities given as services to clients.
Example is ERP software such as SAP and Oracle
providing standard business workflows in the cloud.
Volume 2 – No.8, June 2010
Some of the major players in cloud computing are
Amazon [12], Google [13], IBM [14], Joyent [15],
Microsoft [16] and SalesForce[17].
Current cloud computing services are storage
services, spam filtering, performing applications in
high level programming languages such as Java or
the use of some kind of database. In 2008, Google
has released Google App Engine [13], a cloud-based
platform used for running applications both
individuals and businesses. Microsoft has released
Windows Azure [16], a cloud-based operating
system, for the Community technology Preview.
3. Advantages and Issues Related to
Cloud Computing for Web
Application
There are several advantages to cloud computing and
some of them are presented below:
3.1 Price: It is easy to see that start-up
enterprise companies do not have to invest huge sums
of money into setting up infrastructure such as huge
application servers, data servers, database
administrators, people resources for managing such
critical systems including back up and recovery, etc.
Instead, enterprise companies pay for services based
on usage.
3.2 Simplicity: It is simple to use and set
up all the services without having to worry about
resource management and other hassles that come
with infrastructure set up and management.
3.3 Reliability: Network and data access
are guaranteed to be reliably maintained as the
service provides are experts in maintaining the
infrastructure and such reliability is backed by some
kind of “money back guarantees” or penalties for the
providers in the event if they have a down time.
3.4 Flexibility: Service consumers have the
flexibility to “outsource” parts of the infrastructure
and can still maintain to some extent proprietary data
at their own site.
3.5 Collaboration: Since all the
applications are on the cloud, it becomes a natural fit
for consumers to effectively collaborate on a common
project or application.
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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
There are several issues related to cloud computing
and some of them are presented here.
4. Privacy and Security
Cloud computing allows users to add more capacity,
more services and seamless software patches, despite
of existence of encryption and access-control
software, some organizations will be hesitant to put
their proprietary data on a public-access cloud. From
a practical point of view, does the data still remain
proprietary if it is stored on a public server? What
laws will protect such data in case of software piracy?
Anyone who stores data on the memory bank cloud
theoretically access locations outside their space.
How is security of the data handled in this case?
From both privacy and security points of view, the
more restricted the access to the data is, the easier it
is to protect it. In order to ensure fast access to data
stored and to prevent the loss of data in case of failure
of one data center, the users data may be mirrored on
two or more sites, making it even more vulnerable.
On the other side, grouping such a massive amount of
data in one physical location makes it prone to
damage. To prevent such large-scale failures, the data
should be stored on sites that are geographically far
apart.
4.1 Standards: There need to be standards
governing regulations which ensure uniformity in
how the applications are accessed, stored and
modified. Otherwise consumers have fewer options to
move their entire operations because of cost
considerations. However, with standards, enterprises
will have neutrality in picking the service provider.
Yet, at this time of this writing, none of the entities
have started describing such standards. To be
effective, major players need to join to agree on
standards.
4.2 Legality: Who owns the enterprise data? Do
the service provides also have ownership? Even if
non-disclosure agreements are signed, these might be
waived when government agencies are involved. This
begs the question whether the client might be ready to
forgo the rights of their data. As well, issues arise
regarding intellectual property rights when data
services are hosted by a third party site.
4.3 Mentality: For wide acceptance of cloud
computing it requires consumers to relinquish the
ownership mentality some extent and to develop a
somewhat broader mindset. Indeed once service for
Volume 2 – No.8, June 2010
cloud computing is accepted; it will be hard to go
back to older ways.
4.4 Pricing Theory: If prices do become
prohibitive then pricing theories and mechanisms
need to be revisited certainly in the long run. Are the
service provides willing to give discounts based on
length of usage, frequency of usage, etc? It is hard to
impose limits on a free market where the survival of
the company depends on cloud computing services
employed.
5. Data Servers and Managing
Energy Consumption
As of 2009 the majority of cloud computing
infrastructure consists of reliable services delivered
through data centers and built on servers with
different levels of virtualization technologies. Data
centers are the physical form of cloud computing.
The idea is to move computing and storage from the
user’s desktop or laptop to remote locations where a
huge collection of servers, storage systems and
network equipment can form a seamless
infrastructure for applications and storage.
Data centers are warehouse-like buildings with
thousands of servers. They are built by the internet
giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and
Yahoo, based on affordable land, readily available
fiber-optic connectivity, abundant water, inexpensive
electricity and relative goof weather. Today, most
advanced data centers store tens of thousands of
servers. Each server has the dimension of a pizza box
and contains one or more processors, memory, a hard
disk, a network interface, a power supply and a fan. A
rack holds up to 400 such blade servers, slid
vertically like books on a shelf. Vendors like IBM,
HP, Sun Microsystems, Rackable Systems, Venari
Systems houses 1400 blade servers.
Energy efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions,
saves money and water. Power plants require an
average of two gallons of water per kW-hour
electricity produces. In 2007, US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that the data
centers spend almost half of their energy
consumption on power converters and cooling
systems for the servers [18] [19].
The computing components- the CPUs and the
money-receives around two thirds of the total energy
consumed by a server, the rest is lost. A major loss
occurs when converting electricity from AC (power
outlet) to a set of low DC voltages. The voltage
regulator circuitry on the motherboard converts
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 International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887)
further the low DC voltages to the voltages required
by the microchips. The data center is supplied by
high-voltage AC that needs to be converted to the
standard 120 or 208, with up to 9% loss.
Additionally, the components of a server use DC, so
an AC-to-DC conversion is needed, that generates
additional loss. Distributing high-voltage DC power
throughout the data center may reduce the loss.
The new Nehalem servers of Intel will have voltage
regulators, software tools to monitor power
consumption e.g. Dynamic Power Node Manager, a
power-efficient motherboard that uses 85W instead of
115W in idle mode [20].
Still, better designs are needed to improve the power
needs. The Climate Saver Computing Initiative is a
group of industry partners which includes Intel and
Google. The initiative advocates efficient computing
and is committed to cut the energy used by computers
in half by 2010.
6. Conclusion
Cloud computing is currently gaining popularity as an
inexpensive way of providing storage and software.
A new paradigm of computing has started to evolve
in recent times called cloud computing. As wireless
broadband connection options grow cloud computing
allows users and companies to pay to and use the
software and storage as needed, in this environment,
applications, data and software no longer exist on the
client side, instead they are treated as abstract
services and reside in a cloud. A cloud can be a
network of nodes that are located on the server side.
Many of the technologies such as grid computing,
peer-to-peer computing have a direct contribution to
cloud computing. We have given special importance
to the connection between cloud computing and web
applications. We have listed advantages of cloud
computing and have highlighted challenges with
cloud computing.
Special software tools like virtualization allow a
single machine to be seen as multiple independent
machines. In this way, a server can increase its
utilization to up to 80%, compared to the average of
16% obtained currently. Self-management of such
servers will involve controlling power usage, sharing
of the distributed data and failure detection and
correction.
Many companies are moving forward with the
intention if building easy to use clouds. There is
tremendous potential for consumers to exploit the
cloud computing technology. With that in mind, in
this paper we have given an introduction to the
Volume 2 – No.8, June 2010
technology and discussed the advantages as well as
the challenges associated with it.
7. References
[1] Flanagan, D. 2002 JavaScript: The Definitive
Guide, O’Reilly Media, Inc., Fourth Edition. .
[2] Wikipedia, XMLHttpRequest.
Available:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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[3] Nottingham, M. 2005 “Syndication format”,
Internet RFC 4287 Internet Engineering Task
Force.
[4] Pilgrim, M. 2005. Greasemonkey Hacks: Tips and
Tools for Remixing the Web with Firefox,
O’Reilly Media, Inc.
[5] Google Inc. AxsJax Frequently Asked Questions.
Available
http://googleaxsjax.googlecode.com/svn/
trunk/docs/faq.html
[6] Chen, C. L. and Raman, T. V. 2008. AxSJAX: a
talking translation bot using Google Im:
Bringing Web applications to life. In Proceeding
of the International Cross-Displinary Workshop
on Web Accessibility, 2008, pp. 54-56.
[7] Raman, T. V. 2008. Cloud computing and equal
access for all. In Proceedings of the International
Cross-Displinary Workshop on Web
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[8] Mei, L., Chan, W. K., and Tse, T. H. 2008 A tale
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[9] Bennett, K., Layzell, P., Budgen, D., Brereton,
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based software: the future for flexible software.
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http://www.bds.ie.Pdf.ServiceOriented1.pdf.
[10] Software & Information Industry’s, eBusiness
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[11] Zhang, L. J., Zhou, Q., 2009. CCOA: Cloud
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[12] Amazon EC2. Available:
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2.
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Volume 2 – No.8, June 2010
[13] Google Inc., What Is Google App Engine?. [18] US Environmental Protection Agency, Report to
Availablehttp://code.google.com/appengine/docs Congress on Server and Data Center Energy
. whatisgoogleappengine.html Efficiency: Public Law 109-431. Available:
[14] IBM. Available: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_developm
cloud/cloudburst. ent/downloads/EPA_Datacenter_Repoer_congre
[15] Joyent. Available: http://www.joyent.com/ ss_Final1.pdf.
August 2009. [19] Koomey, J. G., Estimating Total Power
[16] Microsoft Azure. Available: Consumption by Servers in the U. S. and the
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[17] SalesForce. Available: http://www. com/Downloads/svrpwrusecompletefinal.pdf
salesforce.com/platform/cloud-platform. [20] Shah, A. 2009. Intel eyes cloud computing with
new hardware, software. PC World Magazine,

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